In a surprising turn of events, just one day after President Joe Biden announced he would not be seeking re-election, Democrats managed to raise an impressive $100 million through their primary fundraising platform.
This surge in donations came via ActBlue, a political action committee designed for Democratic fundraising. According to a live tracker from developer Ryan Murphy at The Marshall Project, this remarkable figure was collected in just two days. While not an official total, as it relies on ActBlue’s comprehensive tracker established in 2004, it highlights the fundraising capabilities of the organization ahead of required financial disclosures.
On the first day alone, donors contributed $66.9 million to support the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, marking the highest single-day fundraising total for the 2024 election cycle through ActBlue. The previous record for a single-day donation spurt was on September 30, 2020, when Biden and Trump faced off in their first presidential debate.
As a result of the increased donations, ActBlue has crossed a significant milestone, having raised $14 billion since its establishment 20 years ago. In comparison, its Republican counterpart, WinRed, founded in late 2019, has raised approximately $4.3 billion.
ActBlue expressed enthusiasm about the surge on social media, noting that many individuals reported making their first-ever contributions in the last 24 hours, inspiring optimism about grassroots donations.
Additionally, Future Forward, a super PAC aligned with Biden, secured $150 million in new pledges from major contributors within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement and his endorsement of Harris. Similarly, Swing Left, which has set up a fund to support the Democratic nominee, reported raising over $160,000 in just one day.
Roger Altman, founder of Evercore, stated that Harris’s campaign would be “very well financed” and expressed his support. Prominent Democratic donors George and Alex Soros have also shown their backing for Harris.
Historically, Biden’s most lucrative fundraising moments occurred shortly after he was defeated by Trump during a debate on June 27. Following that event, Biden and his committees raised approximately $28 million in a two-day period. After Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, Biden raised $19.2 million, while Trump and his affiliated groups garnered $69 million in the days following his conviction, leading to a temporary outage on Trump’s campaign website. In the month that followed, Trump’s aligned super PAC raised $70 million.
Between April and June, pro-Biden groups raised $332.4 million, compared to $431.2 million for pro-Trump groups. By the end of June, Biden had a cash reserve of $281 million, while Trump had $336.2 million.